Mike Lindell kicked off Twitter within two hours after rejoining.

Jack Posobiec on Twitter ^ | May 1, 2022 | Jack Posobiec

[Macho MAGA Man]

Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec

BREAKING: Twitter has suspended @MikeJLindell after just 2 hours!

Stand up to cancel culture ->

5:12 PM · May 1, 2022

[Observator]

Twitter is publicly traded but it's a private employer, not an extension of the federal govenment.

They are (currently) under no requirement to enforce the First Amendment. Do you really want to place private corporations under increased government control? I'm thinking Bernie will go along with that.

[Rappini]

Musk should find out who hit the button to delete Mike and then fire him/her immediately.

[AndyTheBear]

Actually I don't often like people being banned even when I acknowledge there is good reason. Usually I'm more anxious to challenge those who are zotted with Socratic questions.

But to your other point. Twitter is de facto in occupation of what by natural law belongs to everyone. That they are not a government entity becomes a moot point when the government leans hard on them to censor. If Twitter loses control of the public debate forum and another platform becomes the defacto then the government will want to lean in hard and make the other platform their proxy for censorship. One way or another liars in government want to censor and hide truths and ideas for their own end. Individuals can't switch brands for what is a broad public forum. Only the public at large can. So as is we are set up for censorship in large public forums with private companies being coerced by slimy swamp critters no matter what we do unless we pull a Musk and take over the private company controlling the forum and steadily resist the coercion to follow. We need laws and principles constraining the government swamp critters from doing this.

[Macho MAGA Man]

I agree with you.

[Observator]

I'll read your response a couple more times, but I'm not understanding what you mean by Twitter occupying what is granted by natural law.

Regardless, in America private employers don't have to enforce the First Amendment. In his role as CEO Musk had in place several policies to prevent consumers and employees from speaking about things he considered negative. Which he is entitled to do, no one has to work for him.

For him to describe himself as a free speech absolutist is a bit rich, though.

[StAnDeliver]

"The problem that Musk needs to fix is that people like Trump and Lindell should have never been banned in the first place."

"Elon Musk Unveils New Tesla Time Machine To Prevent Trump And Lindell From Being Banned In The First Place"

[AndyTheBear]

By Natural Law I mean the God given unalienable rights natural to the state of our species that the Declaration of Independence asserted were self evident truths. Some of those rights being explicitly recognized such as the freedom of speech and of the press. Specifically the Bill of Rights assured the federal government to be formed was not authorized to make laws to abridge them. But that explicit language in no way implies that natural law does not cover more than stopping such federal abridgememt. The rights can also be violated by private companies as proxies. If a company controls the most common forum of political debate and under coercive pressure from government selectively censors individuals from the discussion that is a violation of natural law with a private company as its agent rather than the government. For forums that are like clubs there is no natural right for a person to invade. But for big forums that are the de facto market place of ideas there certainly is. Natural Law is what is behind the Constutution. It is not limited to what the Constitution is explicit about. And this fact is actually explicit in the last two amendments of the Bill of rights. The public owns the market place of ideas collectively and any people that gains control of it have the same natural right obligation to free speech no matter that they are a corporation or a government panel.

[Observator]

Gotcha, thanks for the explanation. I think what you are saying is that Twitter is not violating US law for restricting free speech, but they are violating a natural law of God. That law of God is somewhat specific and allows for content moderation on websites that are more like clubs, but does not allow of content moderation on large, general-purpose websites.

[AndyTheBear]

In summary yeah. There is often confusion when discussing law around whether one is arguing what the law currently says as opposed to what it ought to be changed to say. I am talking of the latter. But when we talk of an “ought” in that sense we have to appeal to a system of morality that we think the law should conform to. I think I am using the same system that our founders did. What John Locke called Natural Law.

[DiogenesLamp]

Not at all. I make what I think a very reasonable distinction between websites that operate as a club of likeminded people and websites that operate as a conduit of general communication. It is madness to treat them the same under the law.

Thank you. Now please discuss this idea with Semimojo.

[JimRed]

Where does the buck stop at Twitter? What individual(s) is (are) empowered to kick off any subscriber? Musk needs to get them first.

[JimRed]

There are a great many people on the Twittsewer that scare you with their lack of knowledge.

"The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."- Ronald Reagan

[JimRed]

It would be interesting to know just what Mike said that triggered the ejection.

[DiogenesLamp]

The problem with your argument is that Twitter is not a publicly owned space. I guess you could try to call it public because of the high number of users, but that's just wording. They are under no obligation to enforce the First Amendment any more than FR is.

Disagree. Because they require the public to be a viable business, and because they are open to the public then they are a defacto "utility" regardless of how they wish to present themselves as a "private" company.

This crap didn't work for AT&T and we cannot allow it to work for other communications systems that have become utilized by the public.

Do we really want private companies to be tasked with sussing out what qualifies as free speech, and what should be disallowed, in order to stay in compliance with government requirements?

Does the phone company do that? I don't think so.

How about this? You censor someone's speech and the Federal government takes a sledgehammer to your company?

You leave people alone, and you get left alone.

[DiogenesLamp]

Twitter is publicly traded but it's a private employer, not an extension of the federal govenment.

And how do you know that? The evidence is emerging that it seems to have quite a lot of government control as do other big tech companies.

I notice China gets anything censored that it wants censored.

When you are big enough, the government can find all sorts of ways to make you do what the government wants, and do you think the Joe Biden administration will hesitate to use behind the scenes threats to force a company to censor what it wants censored?

This idea of allowing large communications companies to censor American speech will end up being the path by which government(s) censor American speech.

It is impossible to stop government control of speech through "private" agents unless you bar private agents from censoring speech too.

This is a no brainer. Apply the first amendment to all large publicly utilized communications systems.

[DiogenesLamp]

They are (currently) under no requirement to enforce the First Amendment. Do you really want to place private corporations under increased government control?

You're flipping it. You are reversing the meaning. Government prohibiting censorship is not putting it under government control. It is preventing it from being under government control.

[DiogenesLamp]

Excellent.

[Observator]

This is a no brainer. Apply the first amendment to all large publicly utilized communications systems.

FR is a publicly utilized communication system, right?

[Izzatso]

Government prohibiting censorship is not putting it under government control.

---

Interesting. So if the government prohibits censorship, and a corporation decides to censor free speech, what do you envision the government doing about it?

[DiogenesLamp]

FR is a publicly utilized communication system, right?

No. It is a club with restricted membership.

This model breaks down when you are looking at a million plus users.

And why do people always want to try a "gotcha" by resorting to Free Republic?

Twitter and Free Republic are comparable to Lightning and a Lightning bug.